Links to other BASIC Stamp sites & resources

Here are additional sites with information and support for BASIC Stamps.

Parallax, Inc.

Parallax is the manufacturer of the BASIC Stamp. Their site includes all the manuals for free download as well as many application notes, schematics and FAQs. Many of the documents can be found in the downloads web page. The application notes for the original BASIC Stamp I are still very useful for ideas, so don't pass them up. They still have relevance for the BASIC Stamp II. There is also a good STAMP_FAQs document.

Parallax lists

Parallax maintains an very active email listserver. Visit <http://forums.parallax.com> to join and to participate in the mailing list, or simply to browse through the archives. You can execute a search through the archive there in hopes of answering your burning questions.  The Google search facility at http://search.parallax.com us better than the one on the search bar.   There is also an archive there of the messages from the earlier Yahoo groups list.

Parallax BASIC Stamps in Class

Parallax is developing a curriculum and hardware package for use in schools. It teaches about microcontrollers and what they can do.  I am proud to have authored a series of lessons entitled Earth Measurements. The curriculum also includes units on robotics, automation, and the basics of microcontrollers and electronics.

Scott Edwards Electronics

Scott wrote many articles for publication in Nuts and Volts magazine, on how to use the BASIC Stamp. I understand that Scott also wrote the original series of great application notes that appear in the BASIC Stamp I and BASIC Stamp II manuals. He has built a business around his serial LCD screens and other products that take away some of the strain of building projects with a BASIC Stamp. His DCPB (Data Collection Proto Board, now discontinued) was my own introduction to the capabilities of the BASIC Stamp. The manual is available online at Scotts's web site, along with lots of other application notes.

Al Williams Electronics

Al puts up a Stamp Project of the Month, which includes material from his many published articles and books. This includes material on interface to PCs via the serial port using QBASIC, Visual BASIC and other PC higher level languages. He has a math coprocessor and a pwm module for sale, and probably other stuff too, as his offerings grow by leaps and bounds. These modules are called "PAKs". In addition, he maintains a popular database of Frequently Asked Questions. Stamp FAQ.

Peter Anderson

Peter has published extensive tutorials on the BASIC Stamp, based on teaching experience with his students. He must have a great program there at Morgan State U. in Maryland. He has lots of material on his web site (including material on weather monitoring projects and sensors). He also has educational kits, parts and stamp accessories available for sale at low educational prices. Many of these accessories were developed by his advanced students.

Christer Johansson - High Tech Horizons - Sweden

L.O.S.A - List of Stamp Applications Christer has maintained and extended this list for years. It shows a wide variety of things people are doing with BASIC Stamps. Many of the descriptions include further contact information or a web address. High Tech Horizons" offers a number of products for small microcontrollers. Especially notable is the PLM-24 power line modem, much more capable than the common X10 devices, and the SNAP protocol engine for networking multiple Stamps and microcontrollers.

Arístides Alvarez

The web site has photos of many interesting robots devised by Arístedes and his students in Argentina. Arístedes is a Parallax consultant, who has translated the Spanish language version of Stampsinclass. He is moderator of the Spanish language mailing list RoboticadelMarPlata. Update: Aristides is now a full time Parallax professional and he has relocated to California. He still is the Parallax main man for the Spanish language editions.

Brian Forbes

This site describes Brian's excellent book on the internal operation of the BASIC Stamp II. His book is a must have for the professional or for the advanced enthusiast. Also, in connection with Brian's book, you might want to check out Chuck McManis' page about decoding the internal workings of the BASIC Stamp I.

Selmaware

Home of Stamp Plot Lite (free) and Stamp Plot Pro (inexpensive), PC programs for capturing and visualizing data output from the BASIC Stamp. Uses simple Debug commands to direct and format the output. Also available is the BISCIT system, a means of controlling a stamp system with Active-X controls over the internet. Martin Hebel and Will Davenport at SIU wrote the Industrial Control text for the Stamps-in-Class program, and both authors are active on the Stamps mailing lists.

Solutions Cubed

Solutions Cubed manufactures several modules that offload certain tasks such as timekeeping and running motors from the main stamp processor. Lon Glazer of Solutions Cubed has written a number of Stamp Applications columns for Nuts and Volts magazine.

Reynolds Electronics (Rentron)

Products offered are: 1) the the fire-stick, an infrared remote link transmits and receives the state of of 4 parallel bits. Claims to be good to 50 or 100 feet. 2) theWEDGE, an economical BASIC Stamp prototyping setup, 3) a serial keypad interface, 4) information on RF telemetry using Ming modules. 5) robotics information and projects, 6) development tools for Stamp, PIC and 8051. Myke Predko's articles on microcontrollers & programming are available here.

Chip Circuit

Sid Weaver and Dave Mucha are very active on the BASIC Stamps list server, and have come up with nice carrier boards for the TLC2543 analog to digital converter, and the DS1307 and DS1302 real time clocks.

Mark Hillier, HVW Technologies

Canadian distributer for Parallax and StampsInClass products, as well as many other electronic products. A recent innovation is the "StampStack", which is an OEM BASIC Stamp module with DB9 connector, that can be plugged into a breadboard. Mark is an active contributer to t he BASIC Stamps discussion list.

Jon Williams

Jon is currently writes the monthly "Stamp Applications" column for Nuts & Volts magazine. These columns and other application notes are archived on the N&V web site, and on Jon's own site. Jon is an active contributer to the Stamp discussion list and he is a top notch Parallax applications guru. (and a professional actor as well!)

Fred Kockelbergh, Department of Biology, University of Antwerp, Belgium

Fred has several designs shown on his page, including data loggers for specific biological applications, and a small weather station built around the BASIC Stamp II. ( A lot of these links are broken).

Mike Hardwick, for Decade Engineering

"Manufacturer of the famous BOB-II Serial Video Text Display Module! "

Matt Parnell, Weatherstamp

Matt has implemented a complete weather station using the BASIC Stamp 2SX and sells circuit boards and parts. He has a very nicely organized and illustrated site, with software and hardware documentation for the project.

James Russo

James maintains a searchable archive of the past activity on the BASIC Stamp mailing list. This is the list as it existed before it moved to the egroups server. A valuable resource. A tremendous number of topics have been covered--you just have to dig for the signal in the noise.

Nuts and Volts magazine

This is the magazine that carries the most information about the BASIC Stamp, including the Stamps applications articles by Scott Edwards, Jon Williams and Lon Glazer in their archives.

Bob Blick

Bob provides a number of application notes and schematics, including his famous H-bridge circuit

Jan Axelson

Jan wrote the book Serial Port Complete, replete with information serial data transfer in RS232 and RS485. Her site includes links to articles she has written for Microcomputer Journal and for other publications on microcontrollers and interfacing.

Beau Schwabe

Beau has been an active contributer to the Stamps email group and always has innovative solutions to problems. Beau is a master of the ascii art schematic drawing. He maintains an on-line archive of circuits and imaginative design ideas for the BASIC Stamp II and electronics.

Steve Parkis

Programmer extraordinare. Programmed the Stache operating system. His web site shows his own projects using the SX micro, the TM1 time machine and PM1 pulse machine, and also expander chips for the BASIC stamp. Also an interface for Dallas one-wire chips, to connect them to Stamps.

Barry Michels

Barry has a way cool project that integrates an IDE interface for a standard Compact Flash card (CF) with an 8kbyte SRAM memory buffer and an LCD display. He started with a Stamp prototype and has moved it all to a PIC.

Carl Kollar, Diverse Electronic Services

powerful motors and controllers with BASIC Stamp connection.

Chuck Davis, Oak Tree Systems

Multi-output power drivers, source, sink, and bridge with PWM, also a multioutput control module.

Dontronics

Electronics dealer in Australia, with worldwide distribution. Support for the BASIC Stamp, and microcontrollers. SIMMstick development system.

E-Lab Digital Engineering, Inc.

Todd Peterson makes a series of interesting modules that offload tasks from the BASIC Stamp. These include LCD modules as well as drivers for serial printers, keyboards and a variety of other functions. The site also has an on-line newsletter and application notes.

Don Lancaster's GURU'S LAIR home page

Don has been writing about electronics for as long as many of us can remember. He is a BASIC Stamp enthusiast. His pages are full of all sorts of strange and wonderful information and links.

Micro Engineering Labs, Inc.

microEngineering Labs Inc. sells a popular and well supported compiler that allows you to burn code written for the BASIC Stamp (PBASIC) into standard PIC microprocessors. Check it out! The Pic BASIC Pro compiler has additional functions, like support for the LCD and for I2C protocol. The compiler is updated frequently to support new chips as they are offered by Microchip Corporation. This includes support for the peripherals like the A/D converters, hardware UARTs, capture modules, etc. Conversion of a program from PBASIC to run under the compiler will almost always take some changes in the program, to account for differences in syntax and timing. Also, there are bugs that creep in from one version to the next, especially if you are doing tricky math or tricks with the PBASIC syntax. But the result is well worth it if you have a cost sensitive product.

BASICmicro

A Stamp Clone, the Atom.

Shaun Wilson Basic Stamp II Page

Shaun has some great projects in robotics, and an altimeter, and lots of good links.

Scott Dattalo

Lots of math information for PICs, along with theory

Pond Electronics

This Irish company and distributer of Stamp products has expended a lot of effor to create an HTML conversion of the Stamp manual, the Parallax stamp FAQ, as well as pdf files for the individual application notes.

Protean-logic

An interesting RS232 serial buffer chip available.

Warburton Technology

based in the United Kingdom, Warburton specialise in the distribution of Parallax Basic Stamps and other microcontroller based products and development tools.

High Tech Garage (High-TechGarage.com no longer in business?)

Jeff Wallace offers a "timekeeper" module that mounts under the BS2, so that it does not take any board area. The module uses an I2C bus to address a DS1307 RTC and up to 16kx8 eeprom. Additional products are in the works. Great tutorials too!

Hattem Rata's link page

http://www.geocities.com/stampic/links.htm

 

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